Dancing takes place at Elks Lodge – a private social club. Salsa dancers take up the left wing of the building that is somewhat of a dance studio. There is no age minimum to get in and the dance crowd consists of dancers of all ages. The cost for the two hour group salsa lesson is $10. It is free to get in just for the social. There is a large parking lot in front of the building and there is never a problem to find a parking space. This is a great place in Scottsdale to go salsa dancing on a Tuesday night.
Before the social dancing starts at 9.30pm there is a group salsa lesson at 7.30pm. The salsa class taught here is “on two”. It consists of one hour of shines (individual footwork) followed by another hour of partner work. The shines are beginner/intermediate level. For the shine part of the lesson both beginner and intermediate dancers are learning the same pattern. The shines that are taught during the class are easy enough for a beginner to follow and challenging enough for an intermediate dancer to take the class. Usually exact same shine pattern is practiced for two consecutive Tuesdays. This way if you are a beginner or just have a difficulty learning the pattern, you have two nights to practice the same footwork. Shines usually start out as very basic steps and get a little more complicated toward the middle or the end of the shine. The shine portion of the lesson takes an hour. After a five minute break the lesson is split up in two groups beginner and intermediate, for the partner work part of the class. Depending on your dancing skills and level of confidence you can join either the beginner or the intermediate group. The group part of the salsa lesson has a new pattern each week.
At 9.30pm after the two hour salsa lesson is over the social dancing starts. After the class most people stay for the social part to dance and to practice the new pattern. There are also many experienced dancers that do not take the class and show up just for the social part. Music that is played during the social dancing is mostly salsa with bachata songs in between. The evening ends at 12am.